


A keen lens of empathy

by lotesse



Category: Firefly
Genre: Episode Tag, Episode: s01e07 Jaynestown, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-06
Updated: 2010-09-06
Packaged: 2017-10-11 12:48:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/112582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lotesse/pseuds/lotesse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're hurt," she says again, noticing in the back of her mind that she's repeating herself. She sounds like a dolt. She tries again, says something new this time. "I didn't notice."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A keen lens of empathy

She's working her way through First Corinthians when she feels them come back - _when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child_ \- but the frisson of Simon's self against her own is all rosy pale and full of Kaylee, so she keeps her mind on the text. No need for Rivery interruptions right now, and besides, there's a solution to one of the myriad philosophical impasses she's observed hovering just behind her left ear, and she wants to hold still enough to catch it when it finally flutters by.

When she does slip down to his room on butterfly feet, epiphany achieved, she finds him all alone, sitting on the bed. Reading – a medical journal, maybe? Something that rubs traces of _home_ all over the bed, anyway. She doesn't see the bruise, the broken skin at the soft edge of his mouth, the messy slice down his brow, until her turns to look up at her, and when she does everything spins for a moment.

"You're hurt," she says.

"What? Oh, River, it's – nothing, not really. How was -"

He stopped talking when she moved to him, stood over him tracing the knifeline down his familiar/broken face. "You're hurt," she says again, noticing in the back of her mind that she's repeating herself. She sounds like a dolt. She tries again, says something new this time. "I didn't notice."

He sits her down, smooths down her feathers. No, not feathers. Moths' wings are furred, dusty. "You haven't seen me since we came back aboard. That's why you didn't notice."

Simon doesn't understand. "I was too busy dealing with Limbo," she tells him. "My brain was a billion miles away." Except she doesn't know how far they are, exactly, from Earth-That-Was, so that figure of her distance from destroyed Jerusalem is more poetry than prose. "Approximately," she adds, not wanting to misrepresent her dubiously accurate assertion as hard data.

But that's not what really matters – she's getting distracted. Distracting herself. "I'm sorry," she says. His hair is dirty. He'll fret about it as soon as he notices; he likes to keep neat.

He understands this time, and he pulls her in close so that she can smell his skin, not just the things covering it. She loves his smell. Her Simon. She feels more steady; even though he's bloodied, she can tell now that he's still whole. "Not your fault," he whispers against her hair, and she is comforted by his lie.

He holds her like she's true, and so she stays still for him for a moment, letting him press her close like a child holding onto mama's voice. His bones sag; she can tell that he's very tired, and only just starting to realize it. "Wǒ ài nǐ," she says, dropping the words onto his face like torn wings. "Gēgē."

"I'll be fine, River," he says, trying hard. "It – wasn't my best day ever, for sure, but it all came out right in the end. You wouldn't have liked it down there," he adds. "Very poor aesthetic sense. Strange selection of sculptural subjects."

He's trying to forget something, and it's sticking to the bottom of every word he says. She tries to help him. She laughs for him, as sweet and Before as she can, even though she's not quite sure why what he said was funny. She tries not to think about him, hanging out in the 'verse by a thread. She tries not to think about what her world would be like without him.

"You're back home now," she tells him. "I'll take care of you." She pulls away from him. His arms trail along her body as she rises, reluctant to let go. His arm is bandaged, and it feels like memories of Kaylee's fingers. She scowls a bit at that, and all the instant feeling and upset she'd felt when she'd seen his battered face crawls back up her throat, and she decides that he can stay where he is while she gets their tea things; she doesn't need to see him for a minute. But she can't not go back to him; he was hurt, and she didn't notice. She's the penitent.

He's gone back to his reading while she was away, but his eyes are wide and wary, and she realizes that she's hurt him more, made his heart sorrowful. Didn't say the words. Felt too fast. "I brought tea," she says, feeling suddenly awkward and unsure. "Simon? I thought you might like -"

He stands, takes her face in his hands. Spreads his fingers wide against her skull, webbing them together. "River," he says quietly, and then kisses her cheek. It's a dry little kiss, moth-dusty.

"Don't worry," she says to him, looking up into his eyes. "The story won't end like that. You'll always come back to me."

He lets go of her, fiddles with the teapot. Clumsy. "Do you want some?" he asks her. "I have a bell full of jasmine mix, and – we could both stand to calm down."

She stills his hand. "I'll make it," she says. "You rest." And when he smiles, slow and tentative, and then relaxes back down onto the bed with a weary sight, she can almost believe that she wasn't telling lies just as much as he was. That he'll always come home.


End file.
